


Airborne

by lizandletdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Panic Attack, Rumbelle Christmas in July, rcij
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4495128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way home from returning his son to his mother, Gold has a panic attack and makes a new friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Airborne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyBookwormWithTeeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBookwormWithTeeth/gifts).



> RCIJ replacement fic for ladybookwormwithteeth.
> 
> The prompt was: panic attack, modern day au

Barclay Gold hadn’t technically needed to go all the way to Los Angeles, but he hadn’t wanted to let Neal travel by himself and he’d desperately wanted to spend these last few hours in his son’s company. He hadn’t spent more than twelve hours away from his child before this last year -- before the divorce and before Milah had run off to the other side of the goddamn country with her new boyfriend and taken Neal with her to Anaheim. Now he got six weeks in the summer and a week over the Christmas holiday. It had been a long, bloody divorce and Gold had lost his son in the end.

Handing Neal off to his mother hurt him physically. It hurt him to watch his child run to hug his mother, and it could have been a scene from their lives before, except there was a new man there instead of him. He’d been replaced in both their lives. He grit his teeth and watched them leave. Neal cast one last look over his shoulder at his father before they were out the door, and Gold felt his heart plummet into the pit of his stomach.

He’d hadn’t planned on spending any time in the city of LA. It was polluted and the traffic was too heavy and most importantly of all it ran far too likely that he would bump into Milah and he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t make a scene. It took him all his willpower to turn around, go back through security, and make his way back to the gate to his flight back home. It was simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and not thinking about how much he didn’t want to come back by himself. His house was big and empty when Neal was gone. It was a museum to all his broken hopes and dreams.

Sitting in the lounge at his gate, his mind began to wander as he watched the other people on his flight arrive. There were the usual assortment of businessmen and families, though he did get some amusement out of a little brunette on towering heels who seemed to have been sprinting to the gate. Not long after she arrived, boarding began.

Gold was seated in first class and had a cane, so he was allowed to get on the plane before almost anyone else. As he sat in his seat and watched the people walking past to the rest of the plane, he saw a little boy being led by his father down the aisle towards coach. He wasn’t sure what it was (the child didn’t even look like his son), but something about the little family just squeezed at Gold’s heart. He remembered when Neal had been a little boy and they’d taken him to Disney for a vacation. He and Milah had been happy then and they’d all been a family. And now they were living on separate coasts.

The family passed him by but Gold kept staring into space even as his seatmate -- the brunette who had been late -- arrived and started shoving her carry-on into the overhead compartment. She fell into her seat with a relieved sigh, and he turned towards the window, hoping she wouldn’t be encouraged to talk to him. Fortunately, the girl didn’t show any signs of needing his company, flipping open a paperback book almost instantly.

It wasn’t fair. He’d done everything he could to be a good father and now he had lost his son. Sure, he’d see Neal over the summer but he wouldn’t be able to raise his child. Some other man was going to do that. Some other fucking bastard with a leather jacket and a perpetual five o’clock shadow would be the one to be there in Neal’s day-to-day life.

Gold fought hard to resist the urge to punch the seat in front of him. He had to get the fuck out of California before he went insane and causing a scene was just going to bring the air marshals down on him. Finally, the wheels were moving and the plane was backing away from the gate. Gold was holding the head of his cane tightly in both hands just trying to keep it together until they could get in the air. His palms were sweating and he had to brace himself just to keep from shaking. The plane was taxiing towards takeoff and he braced himself for the sickening lurch as it shook off gravity and he watched the airport (and his son) moving further and further away from him. It felt like someone was sitting on his chest suddenly and he was struggling to breathe.

He couldn’t do this. He needed to get out of California. He needed to be with Neal. It was two conflicting urges that left him felt like he was going insane. There weren’t words for what he was feeling. He struggled to loosen his tie hoping that would let him breathe just a little easier.

“Sir?” the girl next to him said timidly. “Sir? Are you okay?”

Gold was only barely registering what she was saying but he nodded, hoping she’d believe him and leave him alone. He wasn’t sure if he was dying or if he just needed to calm down, but he knew whatever it was he couldn’t do it in California.

The girl seemed nervous, looking around for someone to help her, but the plane was still ascending and the flight attendants weren’t able to walk around the plane yet. She hit the call button anyway, but by that point Gold was panting from the effort it was taking to breathe.

“Are you having a heart attack?” she asked him, her voice a little bit firmer and more concerned now and it was all he could do to shake his head no. He didn’t think he was, anyway, but even if he had been he wouldn’t have cared. He just wanted to hide.

“I think you might be having a panic attack,” she said eventually. “Are you afraid of flying?”

“No,” he choked out at last. A panic attack. That made sense. “It’s just my son.”

He didn’t know why he told her that part, she didn’t need to know anything about him. She just needed to leave him alone to die.

“You need to breathe, okay?” she replied in a soothing voice. “Look at me. Breathe with me.”

She took a series of deep breaths, clearly intending for him to imitate her. He took a few ragged breaths and felt himself start to calm down. His heart was still racing but the feeling that he was going to die at any moment had started to subside. The feeling of sanity gave way quickly to an intense embarrassment and he almost wished he had just dropped dead so he wouldn’t have to face the flight attendant who hurried over to answer the call button from earlier once the plane had levelled out at thirty thousand feet.

“Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine,” the brunette next to him said. “Could we get a bottle of water, though?”

“Of course, miss.”

“My name is Belle, by the way,” the brunette said as she handed him the water. “And you should drink this.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gold replied before taking a sip which went a long way towards settling his frayed nerves the rest of the way. “I’m Barclay Gold.”

“My pleasure,” she said, settling back into her seat with her book.

He was torn between wanting to keep talking to her and continue this strange little intimacy of strangers and leaving her alone.

“I should probably thank you,” he said at last. “How did you learn to do that?”

“My roommate freshman year had panic attacks all semester,” she replied. “It was self-preservation at that point.”

“Regardless, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said. “So business or pleasure?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”

“Neither,” he admitted. “I was taking my son back to his mother’s.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It’s alright,” he replied. It wasn’t really alright, but it wasn’t her fault, either. “What about you? What brings you to Maine?”

“A job, actually,” she said. “I’m on my way to a town called Storybrooke to be the new librarian.”

He smiled a little at that. It seemed that the world really was terribly small sometimes.

 

 


End file.
